Horizons & Souls: On the Spatial Poetics of Hajj
A Spring Seminar + Studio facilitated by Resident Scholar, Dr. Razieh Ghorbani, Horizons & Souls takes its cue from the Qur’anic verse that pairs the horizons (الْآفَاق) with the souls/selves (أَنفُسِهِم), reading them not only as signs but as dual frameworks for “seeing” the world, and for reflecting on it through shifting modes of presence.
سَنُرِيهِمْ ءَايَاتِنَا فِي ٱلْأَفَاقِ ٓوَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ ٱلْحَقُّ ۗ أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِ بِرَبِّكَ أَنَّهُۥ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ شَهِيدٌ
We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a witness over all things? (Quran 41:53)
Saturdays, April 11 - May 16, 2:00PM - 4:15PM
Full Registration: $60 (6-weeks) | Free for students with valid ID
Rooted in visual and spatial studies, we approach the geographies of Hajj by moving between these scales of encounter: from the environmental vastness that opens at Arafat and across the desert, to the intimate body/soul calibrations of orientation, turning, and attention that gather around the Kaaba.
Through moments of Ihram, Saʿy, and Tawaf; sites of Miqat, Arafat, Mina, and Jamarat; artifacts of Zamzam water, white cloth, and stones, we ask: how do these performances, spaces, and objects curate an encounter with the divine? Hajj appears here not only as a rite, but as a dense field of spatial possibilities through which one can be inserted into an ecology of remembrance.
APRIL 11 | SCENE 1: THE RITUALS OF ENTERING
Miqat and Ihram as Hashiyeh: thresholds, borders, and the ethics of stepping into the city of Mecca
Poetry Workshop #1: Ihram as Space
APRIL 18 | SCENE 2: TURNING AS A PRACTICE OF WITNESSING
Tawaf (circumambulation) and the encounter with Kaaba: voids, proximities, and mediating artifacts
Poetry Workshop #2: The Kaaba in your Gaze
APRIL 25 | SCENE 3: MOVEMENT AS EMBODIED REMEMBRANCE
Saʿy (intentional back-and-forth walking), Zamzam water, and Hajar’s trace in-between the mountains of Safa and Marwa
Poetry Workshop #3: The Thick Space of Saʿy
MAY 2 | SCENE 4: THE POETICS OF EXITING AND RE-ENTERING
Heat, distance, and the slow landscape of time in the desert of Arafat
Poetry Workshop #4: View from the Desert
MAY 9 | SCENE 5: THE COLLECTIVE MEMORIAL OF ENDING
From baytuta (dwelling overnight) at Mina, to the casting of stones at Satan in Jamarat
Poetry Workshop #5: Curated by Darkness
MAY 16 | SCENE 6: CLOSING PASSAGE
Hajj as Noun, Hajj as Verb: Pilgrimage as Method
Seminar Format: the first half of each session is centered on visual studies and spatial analysis, while the second half offers a poetry workshop informed by Hajj’s distinctive spatial operations.
This is an in-person only seminar. No prior experience in poetry is required; all levels are welcome!
Image: “The Optics of Kaaba,” Illustration by Razieh Ghorbani, 2025.